


we are not alone in fear

by pocky_slash



Series: grace coming out of the void [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, F/F, Introspection, M/M, Reconciliation, References to Depression, Relationship Discussions, Talking, everyone has a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-25 20:20:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18170993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: As much as Barclay would like to definitively decide this is his happily ever after, it's been too long to just pick up where he and Indrid left off thirty years ago.(Right?)(Barclay frets, Dani hovers, Mama gives a shovel talk, and Indrid drops some revelations about the seventies.)





	we are not alone in fear

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when literally six weeks ago I said, "Oh, there's a story in the middle here but I'm not quite done yet?" Yeah, it took that long to write the last two thousand words. Depression is the pits, my dudes.
> 
> You should probably read the previous story, [the season of scars and of wounds in the heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17374703), before reading this, as it picks up right after that one leaves off.
> 
> The working title for this was "90% talking, 5% nonsense, 5% sex." While the first one was primarily a story about Aubrey working through her shit with a subplot about Barclay and Indrid, this one is primarily a story about Barclay working through his shit with a subplot about Dani and Aubrey. Originally it was going to be just a one-scene epilogue, but I've met me, so I can't say I'm surprised this happened. There are a couple minor OCs sprinkled in to populate Amnesty Lodge. Also, while I worked my share of retail, I've never worked food service and also nothing about the way Amnesty Lodge is set up lends itself to working as a public facing inn and restaurant so I did the best I could with what I was given, GRIFFIN.
> 
> Title (and the new series title) is from Vienna Teng's "The Atheist Christmas Carol." Thanks to **coffeesuperhero** for a quick read-through ♥

At five am, Barclay's alarm starts buzzing. It's a gentle tone that builds in volume the longer it takes to turn it off. On this morning, when Barclay has been awake for ten minutes already, he reaches over and thumbs it off after two buzzes and the room goes back to being silent and still.

"Mama's in the kitchen," Indrid says from within the burrito of blankets in Barclay's arms. "If you get up now, you'll bump into her and have to have your awkward conversation before coffee. Stay another fifteen minutes."

"Yeah?" Barclay asks, his lips curling into a smile. "You're not bullshitting me?"

"Does it matter?" Indrid yawns and buries himself further in the blankets against Barclay's chest.

"Not really," Barclay murmurs. He tightens his embrace and Indrid sighs contentedly. Barclay closes his eyes and lets himself drift for another fifteen minutes before he has to start breakfast.

* * *

Indrid isn't any more enthusiastic to let Barclay out of bed fifteen minutes later, but he manages anyway, adding another blanket to the pile before he goes.

"Terrible things will happen if you leave," Indrid mutters, half-asleep.

"Oh yeah?" Barclay asks. He pulls on a clean pair of jeans and hunts around for a sweater Indrid hasn't claimed for his own. "Like what?"

"I'll be cold."

"Poor baby." He has the urge to kiss Indrid good morning before he goes, but he doesn't know that it would be welcome if it means pulling back all the blankets to do it. He settles for running his hand over the lump of blankets and then slipping out into the silent halls to start breakfast.

Indrid's prediction is correct--the kitchen is empty when Barclay arrives, and he's halfway into his first cup of coffee and his first prep station when Mama wanders in a few minutes later.

"Mornin', Barclay."

"Good morning," Barclay says, methodically slicing bread.

"We gonna talk about the Winnebago parked next to my lodge at some point?"

"It certainly seems like it, doesn't it?" he says. He collects the slices of bread into a neat little stack, ready for soaking in eggs and cream in a few moments, and turns to smile wryly at Mama. "Who's told you what so far?"

Mama leans back against the counter and watches as Barclay pours another cup of coffee and adds three sugars to it. She accepts it gratefully when he hands it to her. "Dani said it was a guest of yours. Jake said he thought it was your boyfriend."

Barclay sips his own coffee and hums. "Then you have most of the story," he admits.

"Most?"

And here it comes. "Well. Do you remember me mentioning once or twice the guy I was with before I ended up in Kepler?" He can feel his cheeks heating up as Mama slowly raises her eyebrows.

"The one you were with for twenty years? The one who was a big deal in Sylvain? The one who you said ruined your life and broke your heart?"

Barclay clears his throat. "That would be the one. His name is Indrid."

"Barclay."

"...he's the Mothman?"

Mama blinks at him. " _Barclay_."

"And he's currently asleep in my bed."

Mama pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. Barclay sips his coffee and waits for her to either collect herself or start smacking some sense into him. He'd give it even odds either way, though he thinks if it was going to be the latter, Indrid maybe would have warned him.

Maybe.

She sighs and straightens up, dropping her hand and shaking her head.

"So the Mothman is a Sylph," is what she decides to focus on.

"Yep." Barclay takes another sip of his coffee.

"Dunno why I'm surprised. He gonna be stickin' around long?"

"We haven't gotten that far yet," he says. "I...hope so. It feels like it."

She examines him critically. "Am I gonna like him?"

Barclay considers the question. "Probably not," he admits. "He's kind of an asshole. It's hard not to be when you can predict the future."

Mama nods and takes one more drink of her coffee before putting it on the counter and crossing her arms. "I hope you know by now that you're family, Barclay," she says. "I've known you almost twenty years now. I don't care how old you are, I'm never gonna stop thinking of you as a little brother, and I look out for my own."

Barclay feels himself smiling automatically. "Thanks, Mama. That means a lot."

"It means," she continues, "That you should know that if he hurts you again, I'll tear him apart myself. I don't care if he can see the future or he was famous on another planet or how many statues people made of him. You're not my blood, but you're a part of me nonetheless."

Barclay is torn between being touched by the sentiment and a little exasperated that 'shovel talk' was her first thought after hearing about this whole mess.

"Well, we're two very different people trying to make a relationship work, so I think we're both going to hurt each other from time to time. That's how these things go," he says slowly. "Especially for two people who have as much history and baggage as the two of us do."

"You know what I mean," Mama says, waving him off.

"Not really," Barclay admits, although that's maybe a lie. "But thanks. It's good to know people have my back."

"Always," Mama says. She pushes off the counter and shoves gently at his arm as she passes him, ducking out of the kitchen again and leaving him to start on breakfast.

* * *

And that's the thing of it, really. Barclay spent a long time alone. He spent years alone and then decades with one other person and no roots to speak of. He might roll his eyes at Mama's insistence that they're family, but she's also the closest thing to family he's had since he left Sylvain. They all are--Mama and Dani and Jake and Moira and Adler and Caterina and everyone at the lodge. Hell, even Aubrey, now, and maybe Duck and--god help him--Ned Chicane. Barclay has people now. It happened slowly, but it makes all the years he spent alternately alone and traveling with Indrid seem like a dream that happened to someone else.

Jake is the first one to find him after Mama leaves, minutes before breakfast service officially starts. Caterina is on his heels. She's expected; Jake is not.

"I thought Moira was waiting tables this morning," he says, barely sparing them a glance as he pre-whips a dozen eggs.

"We switched for no reason at all," Jake says, with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. He grabs a grape from a fruit cup and pops it into his mouth.

"Hey," Barclay warns. "Wash your hands if you're going to be in the kitchen. And those are for customers."

"'Customers,'" Jake says, complete with air quotes. He rolls his eyes.

"It's water aerobics day," Barclay reminds him. "They'll be here in about two hours and you know they always stay for breakfast afterwards."

"Oh crap, I forgot," Jake says with dawning horror. Most days, waiting tables at the lodge is nothing--they get a handful of people dropping in for lunch and dinner, the occasional tourists stopping by for breakfast, but otherwise folks eating at the lodge are largely residents who order off menu and don't critique the service. Jake has managed to switch for one of the few days that they do hearty business from outsiders--the Senior Living Center's water aerobics class. Barclay would feel bad for him, except he's positive that Jake only switched to grill Barclay about his personal life.

Catarina is unphased by this revelation, and already putting on an apron and hairnet to join Barclay in prepping the kitchen.

"Jake says the guy in the Winnebago is your boyfriend," she says as she grabs a knife and starts slicing peppers.

"As hard as it is to believe, Jake is right," Barclay says. Catarina gasps happily. "Sort of. He's my ex. He was my ex? I think we're back together."

"I knew it!" Catarina says. "Oh, Barclay, that's great news."

"It's something," Barclay says. Then, in an effort to change the subject before he wants to crawl into a hole and die, "Has anyone seen Aubrey this morning?"

Catarina, if possible, is even more delighted. "Oh my god, didn't you hear? She disappeared into Dani's room last night and definitely didn't come out before I went to bed."

"Aw, really?" Jake calls through the window. "I had Valentine's Day in the betting pool!"

"Serves you right for betting on our friends' lives," she calls back.

"When did you have?" Barclay asks.

"New Year's," Catarina says, smirking. "I have to check the list to be sure, but I think I've got it in the bag."

They work fluidly in the kitchen, quietly prepping for breakfast side-by-side. It's pleasant, the way mornings are always pleasant at the lodge. Barclay was never much of a morning person when he was younger, which was compounded in his early years on Earth by Indrid's refusal to get out of bed before at least ten. When he worked while they were on the road, it was usually doing late night fry cook work at diners and rest stops, getting home after four and crawling into bed with Indrid until noon.

The Lodge is a different story, of course. He was happy to take on the bulk of the kitchen duties when he first arrived, relieved that he had a purpose to focus on after abandoning everything he'd relied on for twenty years. As time passed and his body got used to a schedule that involved serving breakfast at six am, he found he actually liked being up before the sun. The lodge is at its quietest in these early morning hours and he's often left alone with his thoughts. It gives him time to work through things in his head, or turn off his brain if he's driving himself into an anxiety spiral. Sometimes he has help, especially on days when they're expecting a big crowd, but even then, his rotating kitchen assistants are happy to leave him to his thoughts if he's feeling contemplative.

He needs some of that time now, certainly. It's hard to believe that twenty-four hours ago, he was certain he'd never see Indrid again. It's hard to believe that it's not even been eighteen hours since he turned around and saw Indrid for the first time in too many years. He hasn't had time to process it, and he doesn't even know what there is to process. They haven't talked, yet, and he knows they have to. He knows there are a million things they need to say out loud with words if this is going to work. He needs to be clear about what he wants and needs from this iteration of their relationship. He needs to be sure they're on the same page when it comes to where they're going from here. They absolutely should have had this discussion last night, but it was a hell of a lot easier to think with his dick in the panic room. (And in his bedroom after. And after dinner. And again in the middle of the night when he woke up from a fading nightmare to find Indrid watching him in the dark.)

Before he does any of that, though, he needs to nail down what it is he actually wants.

What he wants is to say, "Never leave me again," but he knows that's not practical. Indrid travels--he always has and Barclay was happy to travel with him thirty years ago. But Barclay has a life here. He has people here. He doesn't know that he could leave Kepler; people count on him.

It's something they'll have to work out. And he tells himself they will, they will, they're both committed to this, before he falls down the rabbit hole of reasons why Indrid might take off and never come back again.

A few of the early risers start to wander out from their rooms, and at 6:30 on the dot, Mr. Goldberg from the library comes in to get breakfast before he starts work. Barclay loses himself in the mindless work of making omelettes and french toast and egg sandwiches, of promising not to tell Mr. Goldberg's husband that he's ordering bacon, and of putting on an extra carafe of coffee when he sees the bus from the Senior Living Center pull up.

There's a lull in service while the seniors are getting started in the hot springs, and Moira comes up to the window, foregoing a table entirely to lean against it and give Barclay a vague gesture that means "the usual." He butterflies her sausage and cracks two eggs onto the griddle while Caterina pours her coffee and sets her english muffin to toast.

"So tell us all about this mysterious stranger, Barclay," she says as Barclay and Caterina work.

"There's not a lot to tell," Barclay says. It's not entirely a lie. Probably. "He's an ex. Aubrey meddled to get us back together."

"Sylvan?" she asks. He hesitates only a moment before nodding. Indrid's place in the hierarchy of their homeworld is something he's going to have to get used to navigating with people, now that he lives in an inn full of exiled Sylphs. "Cute?"

Barclay takes her finished sandwich from Caterina and shoves it into her hands. "Goodbye, Moira!" he says, and she cackles as she wanders away to claim a table.

He's trying to be blasé about this. Nothing has been defined between Indrid and himself. He doesn't necessarily owe his friends any details about his private life, and he knows they're only riled up because of Jake's speculation last night and how flustered Barclay got during dinner service. If he's calm and unperturbed, they'll leave him alone.

If only being calm and unperturbed was one of his strong suits.

The seniors' breakfast is a little more hamfisted than usual. Jake isn't used to waiting tables for more than a handful of people at once and, frankly, he's not very good at it. Barclay tries to make up for it by keeping the service as efficient as possible, but eventually he sends Caterina out onto the floor to help. He can handle the whole kitchen on his own much better than Jake can handle the whole dining room.

It calms once the seniors start finishing up their meals and gathering to return to their bus. Jake collapses into an empty chair in exaggerated exhaustion and Caterina just rolls her eyes and checks in on the remaining tables. That's when Dani, hair damp but already dressed, wanders into the dining room and up to the window into the kitchen.

"Good morning," she says. "Did you have a good night?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Barclay asks, and she blushes, bless her.

"It was pretty good," she says, looking down at her hands. "Um, but I actually wanted to talk to you? Now might not be good, I know, but at some point--" She looks up at him as she starts to speak again, but her eyes wander over his shoulder and she stops abruptly. "Did the specials change?"

Barclay looks over his own shoulder, even though he knows exactly what she's referring to. "I don't know what you mean."

It's a stupid lie, but he has a feeling it will become irrelevant by the end of breakfast. Barclay sets the specials for a week at a time. Unless they run out of something they can't make on site or pick up easily in town, they don't change until the next week. This morning, Barclay maybe took five minutes to erase "Apple Cinnamon Pancakes" and write in "Mixed Berry French Toast," leaving the omelette and the sandwiches untouched.

Dani narrows her eyes at him. "You're a really bad liar, you know," she says.

"Neither here nor there," he says, a weak attempt at diversion. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

That redirects her enough to drop it, and she glances down at her hands again. "It's...a weird ask," she says. "But I was wondering about you and Indrid the first time. Why did you--"

"Good morning!" Aubrey calls cheerfully as she approaches them. Dani's mouth all but snaps shut.

"Morning, Aubrey," Barclay says.

"Where's Indrid?"

Barclay glances at the clock and then leans through the window into the lobby in order to try and see the parking lot through the blinds. He catches the back of the Senior Living Center's van as it leaves the parking lot and, satisfied, turns around and starts making french toast.

"He'll be out in a few minutes," Barclay says. "He's still in bed. The usual for both of you?"

"Yep!" they chirp in unison, so Barclay starts two egg sandwiches concurrent to the french toast, tossing some veggie bacon into the mix. The sandwiches are faster, so he assembles them while the toast is cooking and plates them with fruit cups and orange smiles, sliding them towards the girls across the counter. He glances at the clock again, then plates the french toast and adds a healthy dollop of whipped cream and berries. His timing is perfect, as it always is when he pulls out this trick. By the time he's holding the plate out, Indrid has wandered out of Barclay's room and over to the kitchen at the exact right moment to take the plate from him.

"My favorite," Indrid says happily. He's wearing three of Barclay's sweaters again and it's useless to pretend that doesn't do things to him.

"Ah," Dani says. Her grin is far too knowing. "I get it now."

"Shut up," he says sweetly.

"How did you do that?!" Aubrey asks. "That was--how did you _do_ that?"

"It's a dumb precognition trick," Barclay says, biting back his smile. "He can see the future, ergo, he can see all the possibilities of himself sitting down to breakfast or missing it because he slept in, and plan accordingly."

"It doesn't work on anything more meaningful than breakfast," Indrid says around a mouthful of french toast. "The possibilities get too fractured. But for something as simple as a meal, as early in the day as breakfast, it has a fairly high success rate."

"If we're trying to do things right this time, we should probably stop that, huh?" Barclay says.

"It's hardly our worst sin," Indrid replies, and then shoves a forkful of french toast into his mouth.

Barclay is trying very hard to keep the besotted smile off of his face. "Go sit at a table," he says, shoving Indrid's shoulder lightly. "I'm here for a little bit, still. I'll come find you after."

Indrid waves at him with his fork and heads over to the table in the furthest corner, either oblivious to the way everyone else's eyes followed him across the room or, more likely, unbothered. Barclay sighs and gestures after him.

"Could you two go make sure no one bothers him and he doesn't bother anyone?"

"Which is more likely to happen?" Dani asks, grinning, and Barclay gives her a shove, too.

"Go," he says. Then, belatedly, "Wait, was there something you wanted to talk about?"

Dani picks up her plate and shakes her head. "Nevermind. I'll find you later, okay?"

"Okay," Barclay says. 

He lets himself watch them cross the room and sit down with Indrid, and then goes back to breakfast. The faster he finishes up, the faster he can go out there and join them.

* * *

Breakfast takes longer than Barclay estimated, and Indrid, Dani, and Aubrey are long gone by the time he's finally shut the kitchen down and started the clean-up process. He makes Jake help him out, which is normally a recipe for disaster, but Jake seems particularly penitent after crashing so hard while waiting tables. Everything gets thoroughly cleaned and the dishwasher is loaded to Barclay's exact specifications on the first try. Of course, this just means that Barclay now has proof that Jake is capable of washing a dish for the next time he does a half-assed job to get out of cleaning the rest of them.

Indrid reappears just as Barclay is finishing up in the kitchen. He waves absently at Barclay through the window, then opens the front door and disappears outside. Barclay quickly punches in the settings for the dishwasher, his logical mind ordering him to calm down at the same instant that his heart is panicking that Indrid is already leaving. He reappears before Barclay can even remove his apron, however. He's got a thick sketch pad under one arm and a box of pencils in his hand. Barclay hangs up his apron and tosses his hairnet into the trash, then joins Indrid in the lobby.

"I have some paperwork to do this morning," Barclay says, and Indrid says it with him.

"I know," Indrid continues. "You're going to bring it out here and do it on the sofa."

"Have I mentioned lately how irritating you are?" Barclay says, but he smiles and detours into Mama's office to grab his supply forms, grocery list, and reading glasses. He was going to propose the same thing anyway, which Indrid, of course, knew.

He settles into the couch with his work and Indrid wastes no time in sitting with him, sprawled sideways across the sofa so his back is pressed up against Barclay and one leg is dangling over the opposite arm of the couch. He rests his sketchpad on his lap and pulls out a pencil without further conversation, so Barclay focuses on going through inventory and filling out order forms.

It's a little unsettling, how easy this is. Indrid is warm and bony and heavy against Barclay's side, a constant weight as he puts together next week's menu and updates their grocery order accordingly. Some lodge residents wander in and out, usually pausing for only a moment to gape at the stranger in the large red glasses who's curled up against their boss on the sofa. Mostly, people seem to recognize that he's working and leave him alone.

"Are you ordering more drinking glasses?" Indrid asks after about twenty minutes.

Barclay flips through to the inventory sheets and glances down the column for dishes. They're just at the threshold of where he would order some more and he has to imagine Indrid asked for a reason. "I am now."

"And you're out of chocolate chips because people keep stealing them from the cabinet," Indrid adds.

" _Again_?" He flips over to his grocery order and scribbles that in as well. He's going to have to have another talk with the residents about when it's acceptable to steal his baking supplies. "Thanks."

"Aaaaaand...." Indrid continues. He rips off the top page of his sketchpad and hands it to Barclay. "Just so you're aware." The drawing is of the two of them, seated like they are now, but with Jake and Adler hanging out conspicuously at the edge of the frame.

"Are they going to bother us?" Barclay asks.

"They're going to bother me specifically," Indrid says without looking up, already sketching again.

It's a strange dissonance, a fractured reflection of their life all those years ago. Barclay remembers long afternoons sitting together on couches and benches, in diners and parks. Barclay would read or nap or do crossword puzzles and Indrid would sit next to him and sketch, occasionally leaving to make a phone call or handing him a completed drawing to ask a question or make a point or give him a head's up. He still has a few, tucked into the suitcase in the back of his closet. It was hard to get rid of them, even when Indrid was being an asshole. Even when Barclay was so angry he could hardly speak. Some of them were sweet or romantic. Some were simply very nice drawings of the two of them. The ones he's had the longest and held onto the tightest, though, are from well before they were officially a couple. Sketches that he was given while nursing a growing crush, wandering after Indrid with stars in his eyes. He remembers staring at them in longing and then, once they were together, with awe. Indrid's sketches were usually quick and basic, but somehow, in the ones of Barclay, there was...care. Each pencil line looked and felt deliberate. 

Maybe Barclay was ascribing meaning that wasn't really there, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that they made him feel indescribably loved.

"Hey," he says softly.

"Hm?" Indrid does not look up.

"Hey, look at me a minute."

Indrid turns just slightly, looking at Barclay over the tops of his glasses. He's distracted, still, his eyes drifting back to his sketch pad before shifting back to Barclay.

"What are we doing?" Barclay asks. No longer distracted, Indrid straightens up and swings his legs around so he's sitting more or less properly on the sofa and can see Barclay without craning his neck. "Are we back together? I just...I don't know what this is. I don't know what my expectations should be. I like knowing what my expectations should be."

"You like things to be in order," Indrid says, and it sounds less like an accusation than it might have, once upon a time. Barclay just shrugs in response. "I would like to be with you again. I had hoped I made that clear."

"You did...." Barclay rubs the heel of his hand against his forehead. "I guess I just think we should talk about it more. That's still just...so vague, and I need--"

"--more definition," Indrid says in unison with him. Barclay shoots him an embarrassed smile.

"I can't tell if you finished my sentence because you can see the future or because I'm just...really predictable," he says.

"Both," Indrid says, not unkindly.

"We've been through a lot," Barclay says. It's a struggle to elaborate, to pin down what's driving his desperate need for this to be as clear cut as possible. "I just don't want us to make the same mistakes over and over again."

Indrid is thoughtful as he looks up at Barclay, tapping the fingers of one hand against his thigh. He leans up and kisses him briefly on the mouth and then settles back against him.

"I don't either," Indrid says. "Which seems like a good start, if nothing else. Now, prepare yourself."

And that's another easy role to slip back into--apparently he hasn't forgotten how to interpret Indrid's vague warnings and directions. It only takes him the space of a second to connect his words to the drawing he handed over earlier. Barclay glances at the start of the hallway off the lobby, and there are Jake and Adler, peering guiltily at Barclay and Indrid's sprawl on the couch.

He looks at the drawing again and then says, "You must be getting sloppy--we're sitting in a totally different position then you've got in the drawing."

"We shifted halfway through. If I stopped to erase us and start over, the timing would have been off," Indrid says, then takes the drawing back and turns it for Jake and Adler to see before handing it back to Barclay.

"Awesome," Jake breathes, and his tone reflects the true definition of the word. He crosses the room with Adler on his heels.

"So that means you can really predict the future?" Jake asks, and Indrid speaks with him. "Radical!" they continue together, then, "What am I going to say now? What am I going to say now? What am I going to say now? What am I going to say now?"

"Oh god, please stop," Barclay says, putting his hand on Indrid's knee.

"Did you really used to be the Court Seer?" Adler asks, and again, Indrid speaks with him.

"Are you really the Mothman?" Jake asks with Indrid mirroring him as well.

"Yes," Indrid says. "I used to be the Court Seer in Sylvain. Yes, I'm really the Mothman. Yes, I'm Barclay's ex-boyfriend. No, I won't tell you the outcome of the various sporting events you're curious about. Yes, I can fly. No, I will not help you do sick flips and stunts on your board." He pauses and then adds, in a much less dismissive tone, "No, I don't plan on hurting Barclay again if I can help it."

All four of them are quiet. Barclay looks at Indrid. Indrid looks at Jake and Adler. Jake and Adler look at Barclay.

The moment passes and Indrid frowns and then says, "No, I won't tell you any embarrassing stories about Barclay. But I will tell you that he wore his hair long in the seventies, mostly because I don't think it's embarrassing even if he does--he was very handsome. He used to wear it up like--" He gestures towards the top of his head and spins his finger around. Barclay tries to melt into the floor.

"A bun?" Jake says gleefully, in time with Indrid who points at him before he even opens his mouth.

"Yes," Indrid continues, "a bun! It was charming. I was charmed."

"Do you--" Adler starts to ask.

"--have pictures?" Indrid finishes for him. "Yes, I do, but you can't see them unless he says it's okay."

"It's not," Barclay says quickly. He gives Indrid a swift elbow to the side, but it's more of a nudge than a real jab. He gets points for that "very handsome" comment. "You specifically said earlier that they were going to come in here and bother you, and yet here they are, bothering me."

"You know it's hard to predict anything with perfect accuracy," Indrid says placidly.

"There's a statue of you in Point Pleasant," Adler says.

"It's not an entirely accurate depiction," Indrid says.

"Yeah, it's way too buff," Barclay says.

"It's hard to tell when you're wearing like, fifteen of Barclay's shirts, but you do sort of have an aging twink vibe," Jake says, squinting at Indrid more closely. 

Indrid pushes his glasses to the top of his head and glares at Jake, then turns to Barclay and says, "No, I did not just take my glasses off to make my glare more pointed."

"I wasn't going to say that," Barclay lies, and then Indrid is glaring at him. God, but Barclay's missed this. With that in mind, he adds, sotto voce but certainly loud enough for the others to hear, "The ass is pretty on point, though."

Indrid replaces his glasses and crosses his arms. "No one asked you," he mutters.

"What, it's a compliment!" Barclay insists. "Have you seen the ass on that statue?"

"It's very good," Adler agrees. "I'm not like, super into dudes, but, you know. I have eyes."

"See?" Indrid says, looking up at Barclay. "Bothering me." Before Barclay can respond with something either snarky or way too affectionate for mixed company, Indrid says, "Oh thank god."

Adler and Jake look at Indrid expectantly, but Barclay sits back and braces himself for whatever interruption is about to make itself known. Luckily, instead of a fire alarm or a scream of terror or (on one memorable occasion) a car driving through the front window, it's Dani who suddenly appears, wandering into the lobby from the hall that leads to the hot springs. She pauses to look at them all quizzically--Adler and Jake staring at Indrid, Indrid curled defensively with his arms crossed, Barclay looking casually at the door--and then shrugs and joins them in the lobby.

"Barclay is free to talk to you, but you only have a few moments until the others show up," Indrid says. 

"Others?" Dani asks, but Barclay pushes himself off the couch.

"Don't put too much thought into what he says when he's like this, it just gets confusing," he says. "Did you need me?"

Dani glances around the room again and says, without looking at him, "It's not important, really. But if you have a few minutes, I guess I just...have a question? Or need advice. Or something like that."

"Of course," Barclay says. He turns back to the others. "Don't break him," he says sternly to Adler and Jake, and then, "Don't break them," just as sternly to Indrid. Indrid waves him off.

Barclay follows Dani back towards the dining room--not far, but far enough that Jake and Adler won't overhear what they're saying. Indrid, likely, already knows what this is about in the first place, but as Barclay watches Jake and Adler descend on him, already asking more questions, he figures listening in on their conversation is not high on Indrid's priority list right now.

"Sorry," he says to Dani, returning his attention to her. "I know you wanted to talk to me this morning, I just completely forgot."

"Don't worry about it," Dani says. "It's not like...time-sensitive?"

"Still," Barclay says, "I let myself get distracted."

"That's okay," Dani insists, and suddenly she's the one scrutinizing him curiously. "You don't have to be on for us all the time, you know? I mean you have a job some of the time, sure, but you're allowed to take time for yourself."

"I...." Barclay blinks and tries to regroup. "I guess you're right." He's never stopped to think about it, but when _was_ the last time he took time for himself? He hasn't dated or even slept with anyone in years. His days are working at the Lodge, spending time with the other Sylphs in residence, and doing Pine Guard work. 

That's maybe something to examine more closely once he deals with his more immediate issue of working out where he stands with Indrid. In the meantime, though, this isn't supposed to be about him.

"That aside," he says, "the point is, you wanted to talk, so let's talk."

"Okay," Dani says. She reaches up and twists the end of her braid between her fingers, eyes suddenly everywhere but Barclay's face. "So, you know Aubrey and I are like...a couple now."

"Well, this is the first official confirmation," he says, "but I figured it out. Congratulations."

Dani beams for a moment, her pale cheeks going pink. "Thanks," she says, and then looks away again. "Anyway, what I actually want to talk to you about has more to do with, um, you."

Barclay does not get to learn what that is, however, as the rest of the Pine Guard chooses that moment to arrive at the Lodge.

"I hate that thing," Duck mutters, stomping snow off his boots on the mat. Through the door, Barclay can see Ned approaching, his snowmobile parked behind him. Aubrey's already inside, coat open and scarf hanging around her neck, looking eagerly around the room, searching, Barclay can only assume, for Dani. Dani meets her halfway across the lobby and they flutter awkwardly around each other for a moment, fingers linking together and then falling apart, arms at their sides, and grinning at each other. Barclay follows behind her, stopping a few feet off to smile at the scene.

"Young love," Indrid says quietly from beside him. He glances down--he hadn't even noticed Indrid move from the sofa--and smiles reflexively as Indrid gazes fondly at the girls.

"Remember when we were that awkward?" Barclay murmurs, soft enough that Aubrey and Dani won't hear.

"I remember when _you_ were that awkward," Indrid says, definitely at a normal volume that catches the attention of Jake, Adler, Duck, and Ned, even as the girls continue to stare sweetly at each other.

"Hey, that's not--" Barclay stops and thinks back to the late sixties. "Okay, actually, that's fair. I was very awkward and you were very cool in your own weird way. How were you always cool?"

"I can see the future," Indrid says serenely. Barclay rolls his eyes, but one of his hands settles at the small of Indrid's back, long enough for Ned to give them a calculating look.

"I must say, I'm surprised to see you here, Indrid," Ned says. "But the more the merrier--god knows we don't know what the hell we're doing fighting these things." He gives them a very obvious once-over and Barclay fights the urge to drop his hand and step away, like a teenager caught behind the bleachers. "Do you two know each other, then?"

"Biblically, according to Aubrey," Duck says. Barclay is almost too mortified to notice that Duck seems a little detached from the situation altogether, like Barclay and Indrid are an afterthought to whatever's really on his mind. Meanwhile, Aubrey and Dani laugh outright and Jake badly attempts to hide a snort. "Uh...is there any way...we could go downstairs and maybe...uh...talk about some stuff?"

"Of course," Barclay says, eager to latch on to literally anything else. "Jake, Adler, can you guys go find Mama and tell her we're meeting downstairs?"

"Sure," Adler says, and the two of them head towards the office with a minimum of curious looks over their shoulders. Dani murmurs something to Aubrey and then disappears down the hall, and Indrid turns to Barclay and smooths a hand across his shoulder, adjusting the collar of his shirt.

"Come and find me once Duck is finished hyperventilating over the fact that he doesn't have super powers any longer and his likelihood of survival has decreased by a significant magnitude," Indrid says, once again making no effort to lower his voice.

"Wait, what?" Aubrey says, whirling on Duck, who has grabbed his hair with both hands and looks miserable.

"Indrid!" Barclay says helplessly, but Indrid squeezes his arm and then disappears after Dani, leaving Barclay to try and herd everyone down the stairs before Duck has a meltdown.

* * *

It takes longer than Barclay thought it would to talk Duck out of his strangely rational hysteria, and when he comes back up from the basement, Ned leading a despondent Duck out towards the snowmobile, the lobby is empty. There are even odds Indrid is in Barclay's room or his Winnebago, and given the chill in the winter wind, Barclay barely pauses before heading down the hall. The door is closed, and when he opens it, he finds Indrid wrapped in two blankets, sitting square in the middle of Barclay's mattress as he sketches.

It makes Barclay's chest go tight with want, but it's a different sort of want than the kind that led him to peeling Indrid's clothes off in the panic room yesterday afternoon. This want is about Indrid in his space, in his life, sitting there like he belongs and he's been there all along. It's nearly suffocating, how badly Barclay desires it. It's nonsensical. It shouts past all of their history, all of their baggage. It ignores how many afternoons ended in chilly exchanges or the silent treatment. It disregards how invisible Barclay felt in those last years, how lonely.

Indrid broke his heart. And as much as Barclay wants to toss that aside and hold onto him and never let go again, he owes his past self some caution. He also owes Indrid a more candid examination of what he contributed to the disintegration of their relationship thirty years ago.

He sits on the bed with his back against the headboard and watches Indrid sketch. His hand moves quickly across the page, and although the sketch pad is angled so that Barclay can't see it, he likes watching the process anyway. They sit quietly like that for three or four minutes, and then Indrid rips the drawing off of the pad and hands it to Barclay. His expression is unreadable, his eyes hidden behind his glasses. Barclay takes the paper and then slowly looks down at it.

It's just a quick sketch of a bench next to an R/V, facing some swampland, but it's detailed enough that Barclay recognizes it immediately.

"This is that R/V park in Florida," he says. "We were there in, uh--'86?" Barclay has no idea why Indrid's drawn it now. They spent three months there and he was miserable nearly every moment of every day, suffocating in the heat and humidity, toiling through a poorly paid job as a frycook for a meglomaniacal manager, arguing constantly with the owner of the trailer park where they were staying, all while Indrid stayed holed up inside, seemingly unbothered by any of it. It's not a time in his life he looks back on fondly. It's not a time in his life he looks back on at all, really--he'd rather forget about it altogether.

Indrid twists just a little where he's sitting, turning so he's facing Barclay but not moving any closer. He folds his hands on top of his sketchpad.

"You hated everything about that place," he says quietly. "You hated the weather, you hated your job, you hated the manager at the R/V park. You were utterly miserable, but you wouldn't say anything about it to me at all. And you got angrier and angrier at me with every day that passed that I didn't address any of those things with you. And because I'm...not a very nice person...I refused to say anything about it until you brought it up first, so we ended up in a miserable tête-à-tête. Misery chicken. I saw argument after argument that we didn't end up having because you wouldn't even talk about how unhappy you were--you just expected me to know." 

"That's not--" Barclay starts to say, staring down at the picture, but he forces himself to stop talking and breathe and think before he blurts out the first defensive argument that pops into his head. He pushes past the defensiveness, pushes through it, and tries to put himself back in Florida in 1986. He remembers how small the heat made the Winnebago feel. He remembers the nights he didn't sleep, staring up at the ceiling and listening to his own heart beat. He remembers sitting on the bench in the picture, staring out into the swamp, trying to cling to what little peace he could find.

He remembers Indrid sitting next to him, expectantly, but always quick to lay a hand on his shoulder or knee when Barclay started looking lost.

"I didn't know how to say it," Barclay finally murmurs. He puts the drawing down on the bed and smooths his hand over it, then looks back up at Indrid. His face is still unreadable behind his glasses. "I didn't know how to say...anything. It was there, on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't put words to it. It's nonsensical, I know--it was just talking. And we talked all the time and we argued around it all the time, but for some reason...." He rubs the back of his neck and sighs, willing the tension in his shoulders to disperse. "I thought if you knew, we could skip the part where I had to say the words."

He'd forgotten it, somehow. That weight that got heavier and heavier the longer they were together. That strange block that stopped him from just _saying things_. The way his chest would go tight and panicked and miserable, the feelings folding in on each other when guilt and shame were added to the top. It got to the point where he couldn't breathe right, where every second felt like a steady stream of desperation that he couldn't name.

What he wanted was for Indrid to assuage his fears, to give voice to the things that kept him up at night, to shower him with the assurances he needed. Thirty years apart has given him the distance to understand how wholly unfair it was to put that on Indrid.

"I could have been...kinder," Indrid says. "I felt like you blamed me for everything. Things I deserved and things I didn't understand. So I pulled away, half out of spite and half because I thought if I put distance between us, I wouldn't upset you any more."

There's a certain theatricality that Indrid leans on in his interactions. With strangers, yes, but sometimes with Barclay, too. Barclay has always assumed that half of it is armor and half of it is a persona that Indrid simply enjoys inhabiting. There were times when he was on while they were together that ended in laughter and inside jokes and meandering conversations about the world around them, and there were times when he used it as a blunt weapon against Barclay's insecurities. 

It's all stripped away, now. This is just...Indrid. Tired, scared, earnest. He's quieter. He's more focused. He's more sincere.

He looks back down at his sketch pad and goes back to drawing. Barclay isn't sure what to say, or if he should even say anything. He uses the silence to retrace their relationship, starting with the fights that peaked in Barclay leaving forever and slowly moving backwards through the four years when he knew they were doomed, back into the few years before that when something just felt _off_. Florida wasn't the only time Barclay went to bed every evening desperately wishing that Indrid would just bring up an issue that was twisting Barclay's insides into knots. Sometimes talking seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, but Indrid has never been a mindreader. For all that he can use the future to make educated guesses as to what may be bothering Barclay, the only way he could ever know what was going on inside his head would be for Barclay to share it.

He's not sure how long they sit there in silence. The sun is setting and Barclay knows he needs to get ready for dinner soon, but this comfortable quiet between them feels important. Indrid isn't done yet, he can tell, and he's unsurprised when Indrid pulls off another drawing and passes it over.

This one is easier--Barclay still has the suitcase that's sitting next to the door in the picture. It's tucked in the back of his closet, where it's been ever since he unpacked it into his dresser here at Amnesty Lodge. When he looks up, Indrid has removed his glasses and put them next to him on the bed. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and then drops them back to his lap and looks at Barclay again.

"I was alone for a very long time," he says. "You know that. I was kept apart from others on Sylvain and once I crossed over, I was on my own entirely for years. Decades. When you travel alone, it's easy to follow the whims of the future, to head where you're supposed to go, to follow possibilities that seem promising. That's how I found you, after all. But once you add someone else to the equation...."

Indrid looks down and picks at a loose thread in the quilt wrapped around his shoulders. He looks exhausted--small, compared to the way he normally fills a room, quiet, compared to his usual bluster. He glances back up at Barclay and offers the ghost of a smile, just the smallest quirk of his lips. Barclay doubts anyone else would have even noticed it.

"Adding someone else's life to my own made everything more complicated. And falling in love with someone was...." He catches Barclay's gaze and holds it. "I never regretted it. But it was overwhelming. Suddenly there was someone whose future mattered more to me than my own. The more I loved you, the more scared I was of losing you. I was more focused on following your futures than I was mine. I was terrified constantly that something would happen to you or that you would leave. And, of course, I kept seeing that you _would_ leave, which just made it worse and worse as the other possibilities fell away over the years until that was all that I could see."

It takes Barclay a moment to understand what's happening, to jump from his own foibles to Indrid's. The embarrassment at studying his past flaws bleeds into surprise at how candid Indrid is, how matter-of-fact. The Indrid he left thirty years ago wouldn't hear a word against himself and his abilities. The Indrid in front of him is slowly cracking his faults open for Barclay to see.

"It seemed easier to pull away than to admit you were going to break my heart," Indrid continues. "I picked fights I knew I would lose. I blew you off. I ignored you when I knew you wanted to talk because I was so mad that you wouldn't just tell me yourself. Because us not talking--it just hastened our path towards separation. I didn't understand why you couldn't see that. And I was twice as unreasonable after seeing futures where you hurt me, even if it didn't actually come to pass."

Barclay frowns at that. "Hurt you? I--you can't think that I would--" He feels a little sick. He's bigger than Indrid, sure--he's bigger than most people, 6'5" and broad shouldered, strong enough to win nearly any physical fight, though he's avoided picking them since long before he ended up on Earth. Indrid is all elbows and angles, slight and wiry, and though he's not short by most standards, everyone is short compared to Barclay.

He hates the idea of hurting people, of fighting if he doesn't have to. He hates even more the idea that Indrid might have been worried about such a thing.

"No, no, no," Indrid says quickly. "Not physically. Not that kind of hurt. More like...do you remember Santa Fe? Do you remember Eduardo Alvarez?" At Barclay's blank look, Indrid adds, "For just a moment, just a split second, I saw a future where you slept with him."

Well, fuck. Barclay scans his memories. Santa Fe was the late seventies, as far as he can remember. Maybe '78?

"Eduardo...." He murmurs, picturing the campground they stayed at outside of Santa Fe, the greasy spoon where he worked nights. A face comes back to him. "Do you mean Eddie? From the diner?" Indrid nods. "I didn't--I mean, for like, two seconds when I first saw him and he flirted with me a little I might have thought about what it would be like, but I never would have--"

"I know," Indrid says, not unkindly. "Well, actually, I suppose 'never would have' is a misnomer because there was a split second when one of the infinite future versions of you did just that. But I know it never happened. And it was there and gone so fast, I wouldn't have even seen it if I wasn't so focused on watching your future. But I held it against you a little, even though it never came close to happening."

Barclay turns that over in his mind. "We left Santa Fe like, three weeks before you originally wanted to leave." Across from him, Indrid flushes, but he doesn't look away.

"I'm not proud of it," he admits. "And it's just one example of...dozens of times over our time together when I made an illogical, emotional choice because I was afraid of anything and everything that might take you away from me. I was terrified of loving you, Barclay. I was disgusted with how desperate I was to keep you with me, with the lengths I went to in order to feed this...paranoia that you would leave me and it would break my heart. I kept putting the future between us in an attempt to keep you far enough away that I wouldn't hurt if you left." He smiles, crooked and sad. "In the end, it didn't matter--watching you walk out still broke my heart."

It's a logical conclusion, of course--Barclay never really doubted that Indrid loved him, not seriously. His anxious and restless mind convinced him many times in those last months together that Indrid didn't care about him, sure, but he never doubted those moments of solemnity when Indrid swore his love. It makes sense, then, that Barclay leaving would break Indrid's heart, would hurt him deep down inside, down in the same places that Barclay hurt for months and then ached hollowly for years after that. He's always been so focused on how badly Indrid hurt him that he never stopped to consider that he might have hurt Indrid as well.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Barclay says, but he thinks about it for a moment and adds, "No, that's not true. There were days I absolutely meant to hurt you. But I never meant to break you."

"You didn't talk to me for so long, and then you left and for the first time in my life, I didn't know what came next," Indrid says. "I could have stopped you--I should have stopped you. But I convinced myself it was better that you were gone, that I would work better without you, without being distracted by you. In my more self-inflated moments, I decided that you left because you couldn't handle being with me. In my weaker moments, I was sure you left because you realized that I'm fundamentally impossible to be with or to love." For the first time, he looks uncertain, eyes drifting down to his hands and away from Barclay's face. "That...wasn't true. Right?"

"Of course it wasn't true," Barclay says quickly. He curls his hand around Indrid's ankle, the only part of him within reach. "It had nothing to do with--you can be difficult and irritating, but you're not unloveable. You're not--you're a better person than you think you are. You always have been. I didn't leave because of anything like that, I left because...."

He pauses to think. He wants to give Indrid a real answer, a thoughtful answer. Last night, he would have said he left because he and Indrid were too different to be together, but that's not the whole story, not really.

"It's okay if you need time to think about it," Indrid says. "I've been thinking about it non-stop since last night. Turning over every possible future where we had every possible argument. Thinking myself in circles and getting angry and defensive of what I did and why. I don't have to tell you that I'm, ah, slightly averse to confronting my own faults." Barclay smiles, just a little. "The point being...these conclusions didn't come nearly as easily as this conversation may have made it seem. So you can think about it for a bit." He pauses and Barclay's heart swells with genuine affection until he adds, "I mean, you do think about it for a bit--we sit here and you stare off into space and dig out all your memories from thirty years ago and then you explain what was going through your mind then."

Barclay snorts, but mostly focuses on their old life together. Sure, they were too different to be happy together, but why? He tries to force himself into objectivity as he looks back. His problems with Indrid were all based in some shred of reality, although he can admit now that some of them were blown largely out of proportion. What was he feeling at this time thirty years ago? Thirty-five? Forty? Fifty? Why, in those last few years, was he so sure they were doomed? What was making him so despondent? When did he reach a point where he knew they couldn't be happy together? What was it about that moment that broke them apart?

"When we first met," Barclay says slowly, "I needed you much more than you needed me. I was less than a year into my exile and I was floundering. I hadn't adjusted to Earth. I hadn't accepted that I needed to adjust. I kept thinking that everything would blow over and I'd be back in Sylvain in no time. I was so deeply in denial that it's a wonder I was as circumspect as I managed to be, which wasn't very to begin with. And then I met you. You knew all of these things about Earth. You helped me finally acclimate. And you were so gentle with me." He snorts softly and glances at Indrid again. "Knowing you now, it's hard to believe how gentle you managed to be. I don't think it's a word I would ever use to describe you."

"I liked you," Indrid admits. "There was a strong possibility that we would get together and I didn't want to scare you away. Plus, you just...." He's quiet for a moment. "You were upset and hurting. You needed someone to show you that the world could be gentle."

Unexpectedly, Barclay's throat gets tight and hoarse with emotion. He has to clear it twice before he can continue, looking away from Indrid to put his thoughts back in order.

"For a long time," he continues finally, "that was all I needed. Just one other person. I was more focused on fixing myself--my attitude, my outlook. I was more focused on accepting my fate and myself, on making Earth my home. But as time went on, I started to realize that I couldn't fully build a home with the way we were living. Not the way I wanted to." He steals another look at Indrid, but there's nothing new to see. The same open, patient expression is still on his face, and when Barclay meets his eyes, Indrid nods at him to continue.

"It got hard," Barclay says. "Moving from place to place, never putting down roots. I had you, and I loved you, Indrid--you have to know that I did. But we moved from town to town, sometimes after only a few weeks. We didn't talk to anyone else. We didn't know anyone else. You were literally the only person I had in the world, and on days when you were working or busy or gone for whatever reason...I had no one. I was lonely. Looking back, that's what I remember--being so, so lonely. And it's not your fault anymore than it's mine. It's not like we could have settled down in some suburb, and places like this, like Amnesty Lodge...I don't know that a place like this has ever existed before. And before the internet, stranded Sylphs had no way of communicating, full stop."

It's strange to put it all into words--to find that he has words to put it into, even. For so long, he thought of his time with Indrid as a perfect life that Indrid ruined for them. That was the narrative he accepted without thought or question--he was trying and Indrid was not and Indrid was unreasonable and Indrid's behavior made him leave. He never examined it further. It's disorienting to look at it more closely and understand that it could never have sustained him, no matter what Indrid did or how he acted. It's disorienting to accept that their break was just as much Barclay's fault as it was Indrid's.

"I needed somewhere I could have a community," Barclay admits. "I needed to be around other people. Living out of that R/V for the rest of my life--it would have killed me. So I left and I searched for a place I could settle down and eventually I came here. And--god, it's been amazing, Indrid. Living around other Sylphs, not having to lie all the time, having friends--having _family_. Having a whole town of people who recognize me on the street. Having a routine. Being able to know that I'll still be here in two months, two years...they're all things that I didn't even know I needed. I feel like I can finally be at rest after years of running." He frowns, as the creeping spectre of the past few months starts to manifest in the back of his mind. "Or, it did. These past few months things are getting bad--worse. The abominations are getting stronger and more wild and fighting them feels so much more dangerous than it did before. And there's just an FBI agent living here, now! All the time! And after everything I did to find this place, to have a place where I could create this life for myself, I can't let it be destroyed. I can't let anything happen to it. I just...."

Indrid shifts again, and Barclay trails off, heart pounding where it's lodged in his throat as the reality of the escalating severity of their work settles on him again. Abandoning his sketch pad, Indrid slides up the bed until his back is against the headboard too. He reaches out, silently, and takes Barclay's hand, squeezing it tightly in his own, and suddenly Barclay remembers how to breathe.

"Sorry," Barclay says.

"You don't need to apologize," Indrid says.

"I'm sorry about everything, though," Barclay says. "I'm sorry about spending the last thirty years turning you into a villain in my head. I'm sorry that you found me and offered me this wonderful life when I thought my world had ended and it just...wasn't enough."

"You still don't have to apologize," Indrid says. "It was...foolish of me, perhaps, to assume that you needed and wanted the same things I did. It was short-sighted of me to see how you made friends and forged connections everywhere we stopped and not realize that you needed more opportunities like that."

"I didn't even realize it about myself."

"Yes, but I'm the one with supernatural abilities." 

It's barely a joke, but Barclay laughs anyway, tipping his head to the side so his temple rests against the top of Indrid's head. Indrid squeezes his hand in response, shifting his grip so their fingers can interlock.

There's a gentle knock on the door, and then Dani's voice calling, "Barclay?"

"It's open," Barclay says, and she cracks the door just enough to stick her head in.

"It's time to get ready for dinner?" It comes out like a question, so Barclay lifts his head to glance at his clock and then curses.

"I'm sorry," he says. "You're right. I just--can you give me five minutes? You can start prepping without me, you know what you're doing."

Dani's eyes go wide and round, which feels a little like a dig at how controlling Barclay maybe is about people using the kitchen.

"As long as you're sure?" she says, her voice lilting up into a question again.

"Positive," Barclay says. "I'll be out in a minute."

"Okay, I'll be in the kitchen." One last tentative smile and Dani pulls the door shut behind her.

"I guess I should go," Barclay says, though he doesn't move. "I feel like there's so much more to talk about, though. I mean, that's the past, but that doesn't help us with what's happening here and now."

"We have some time, yet," Indrid says. "I'm not going anywhere, not immediately, except maybe out to bring some more of my things in."

"Alright." Barclay begrudgingly slides off the bed and gets to his feet. "We can talk more after dinner. Come out and eat at some point, okay? I promise I can scrounge up something you'll like and if you really don't want to deal with anyone else, you can bring it back here. And be aware that's a special privilege--everyone is gonna make fun of me for weeks if they see it."

"It's odd," Indrid says, smiling a little, and Barclay freezes on his way out of the room. "You haven't changed at all and you've changed entirely, simultaneously." Barclay is sure that requires a response, but he has no idea what it should be. Seeing his hesitance, Indrid adds, "Go make dinner. I'll see you later, my dear."

Barclay goes, if only because he needs a minute to let that endearment settle so he'll stop blushing.

* * *

Dani is decked out in the appropriate apron, hairnet, and gloves when Barclay finally joins her in the kitchen. She's done a fair job of imitating his set-up and he thinks that maybe he should let some people--not _everyone_ , certainly, but some people--take on some of his responsibilities more often.

"Sorry about that," he tells her as he dons his own food safety gear. "I lost track of time."

"No worries," Dani says. "I can see how it would be easy to lose track of time when you're canoodling with your old boyfriend." She waggles her eyebrows theatrically and, right, Barclay should probably just accept that everyone is going to make fun of him all the time forever, payback for all the years he tried to make them do chores around the lodge.

"We weren't having sex," he insists, tying his apron. "We were just talking. We have a lot to talk about, still. Not everything is salacious." 

"Well, sure," Dani says. "Not everything is salacious, but you guys having sex is also a solid logical conclusion after I looked for you at three different times yesterday and found out you were busy banging that dude all three of them."

Barclay does some quick math, ignoring the way his ears are heating up, and...yeah, okay, that checks out. He and Indrid spent enough time in bed yesterday (and on the floor and up against his desk) that it is not only possible, but also likely that they were so engaged at a point when Dani was looking for him.

"It's been a long time," he say sheepishly, and starts chopping vegetables.

"I know," Dani says. She takes the hint and pulls down a stack of salad bowls. "Thirty years, right?"

"No," Barclay admits. "I mean, yeah, it's been a long time since I was with Indrid, but it's also just plain been a long time since I was with...anyone. I kind of shot you down the other night, but you weren't wrong. I haven't been on a date in...a long time." He tries to do the math, gets embarrassed, and stops. "At least a few years."

"Oh man," Dani says. "Was it that surveyor guy? What was that guy's name...Mitt? Mitch!"

"Yeah," Barclay says. This is a much easier conversation to have if he's not looking at Dani. "Mitch." Fucking Mitch. Past Barclay made some shitty choices, that's for sure. "Man, that guy was a jerk."

"Uh, yeah," Dani says. "I thought we all made that pretty clear. You were the one sleeping with him anyway."

She's right, of course. They made it _excruciatingly clear_ that Barclay was way too good for Mitch and that Mitch was a know-it-all asshole whom no one could stand. Those things were all true, but it's not like Barclay was overwhelmed with potential partners. He couldn't afford to be choosy if he really wanted companionship.

Plus, Mitch was pretty hot.

"Well," he says instead of any of that, "I was with Indrid for twenty years. I have a lot of experience sleeping with jerks." It comes out automatically, the sort of jokes he always makes about his shitty love life to Mama and Dani and anyone else who bothers to ask. He puts his knife down and shakes himself a little. "No--I've gotta stop that."

"Stop what?"

He dumps the vegetables he's been chopping into a large metal mixing bowl and then holds out the knife for Dani to take. "Could you finish these? I'm going to start making the sauce for the chicken."

"Yeah, of course," Dani says, but her eyes follow him as he moves over to the spice rack and starts pulling things off of it. The quiet stretches between them as Barclay thinks about the character he's made Indrid into over these past years.

"I've gotten in the habit of turning Indrid into a crazy ex," he finally admits. "That's what I need to stop. I used him as a punchline for a long time, mostly to make myself feel better about how unhappy we were those last few years. If I could make a joke about how unreasonable and crazy he was and other people agreed with me...I don't know. It made it easier to justify leaving the way I did. Not that I needed to justify it--we were honestly going to implode if things kept going the way they were going. But we've been talking and it's come to my attention that our break-up wasn't as cut and dry as I've made it in my head for the past few decades. He wasn't the only one who made mistakes."

When Dani doesn't say anything in reply, Barclay glances over at her and finds that she's stopped chopping and is staring into the middle distance.

"Uh, Dani?"

She blinks and turns to him. "Yes?"

"You went away for a second." He remembers, suddenly, how she's shadowed him all day, always on the cusp of saying something that she walked back once they weren't alone. "What's up? You've wanted to talk to me about something?"

"Well, yeah." She reaches up, as if to twist her braid between her fingers, realizing at the last moment that it's tucked under a hairnet. She drops her hand awkwardly and looks around the kitchen. "Let's...let's get through dinner, maybe? So we're not interrupted?"

"Sure thing," he says. "Keep on the veggies, I'm going to go hang the specials board and once Adler shows up, we'll be good to go."

"Yes, sir," she says with a mock salute, and Barclay puts Dani's unease out of his mind to focus on his menu instead.

* * *

It's a slow night for dinner. A handful of residents have plans elsewhere and outside guests trickle in and out in fits and starts. Dinner service technically runs until nine, but by 8pm the dining room is cleared and the lobby is mostly quiet. Barclay sticks his head out one last time to make sure there aren't any stragglers on their way in, and then closes the door to the kitchen. The window is still open, so he won't miss any last minute diners, but the symbolism of the closed door will keep the rest of the residents from bothering them for a few minutes, at least.

"We've got some time," he tells Dani, leaning against the counter and untying his apron. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Dani flushes and is back to looking distinctly sheepish. She picks up a teaspoon and twirls it between her fingers, and Barclay wonders if maybe he was too quick to jump on this conversation.

"Or we could not talk," he adds. "You could head out early?"

"No, no." Dani waves him off. "No, I do want to talk, I just...it's kind of a personal question." Barclay nods. She's made as much evident before. "And if you don't want to answer it, you can tell me. It's not a big deal."

"What's up, Dani?" he asks gently.

"I was just wondering, I guess, about you and Indrid?" She puts down the spoon and picks up a paper napkin instead, twisting it slowly into a knot. "You were together for like, twenty years."

"We were," Barclay says. "For a certain degree of 'together.' We didn't get involved with each other until we had been travelling together for two years, give or take."

"Right," Dani says. "And...you obviously love each other a lot. And if you were together for so long, you loved each other then, too. You're so happy to be together again. You're so happy with each other, the way you look at each other...I know you care. It's so obvious you care now, even after all these years apart, and I guess my question is...why did you break up? If you cared about each other so much...if you made each other happy...if you were in love...why did you spend so long apart?"

Barclay lets out a long breath and drums his fingers against the counter. He loves Dani, he does, but there's a lot of baggage there. More, he knows now, than he thought there was when he first left. Indrid wasn't wrong when he pointed out Barclay's self-sabotage, and he's embarrassed, looking back. 

"Well," he finally says, "that's...complicated. You're not wrong--we did love each other. We do. Just the nature of the life we were leading, the amount of traveling we were doing, we didn't have anyone else. It was just the two of us, alone on the road. Indrid was my family, my only touchstone on Earth. But that wasn't really sustainable for me. I needed other people; I _need_ other people. But at the time, I didn't recognize that. I knew I was restless and anxious and lonely, but instead of trying to figure out why, I clammed up. I didn't talk to him about it. I thought that...he should have been able to tell that I was upset. I thought that he should have used his precognition to understand what was wrong with me. I thought it would be easier if I bypassed trying to figure it out for myself."

Dani has settled against the counter, rapt, with the napkin a twisted mess of knots in her hands. Barclay finds his own hands are restless as he tries to figure out what to say next. It's more than that, of course--that's what he and Indrid have been picking at all day. But it's also immensely personal. These are things about himself that are still revelations. He's barely had time to process them, let alone to think about how much he wants to share with other people.

"That wasn't...a healthy way to be," he says eventually. "And it really, really wasn't fair to him. But I couldn't talk about it. Like, physically. Which is hard to explain and sounds insane, I know, but it got all rolled up in my fear and anxiety and I didn't know how to start the conversation. And Indrid could tell that I was waiting for him to ask and that I was holding it against him that he wouldn't do it. In retaliation, he put the future between us all the time. He used it as a weapon because he was scared and because he thought the distance would make it easier on him if I left."

He gives up on his hands and shoves them into his pockets, shrugging.

"I know that all sounds dark," he says. "The shorter answer is probably just...communication. If we had just talked about what we were feeling and why we were upset, we could have worked through a lot of those problems. Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but I was so afraid that talking to him about things would mean that he'd leave me that I let things get so bad that I was the one who wanted to leave."

"Oh, Barclay," she whispers.

"I would have had to leave anyway," he reminds her. "I couldn't have kept living in the Winnebago alone with Indrid and been happy. But I definitely sped the process up, to the point that I hardly realized that what I was looking for was community until years after the fact."

Dani hums under her breath and looks down at the napkin in her hands. Her posture is tight, her shoulders curled inward, her head bowed. She's scared, he realizes, and gives into the urge to move next to her, gently laying a hand between her shoulder blades. She relaxes, just slightly, and leans against him. Dani is tall and rail thin, in charming juxtaposition to Aubrey, who's _maybe_ five feet tall without her boots on and on the chubby side. He still towers over her five feet and eight inches, though, and putting an arm around her just reminds him how small and young she is, even by Sylvain's standards.

"What's wrong?" he asks her softly.

"Nothing," she says against his shoulder. "And that _is_ the problem."

And then she starts to cry.

Barclay brings his other arm up around her and strokes her back. This isn't the first time he's held Dani through tears--hell, he's probably held everyone at the lodge at least once while they had a good, long cry. Exile is hard on everyone--it took him almost thirty years to realize the full toll that it took on him, and he left a lot less behind him than most of the residents of Amnesty Lodge. It's a difficult thing to maneuver and he's happy to do whatever he can to make it easier for his friends, his family. The Sylphs at the lodge have all come through the Kepler arch, which is only about thirty years old. Some of them came through as recently as a year ago. Dani's been here less than ten years and he knows she left behind a huge family--acclimating to Earth wasn't easy, though he has a feeling this goes beyond homesickness.

"Hey, it's okay," he murmurs. "It's okay." He doesn't want to tell her not to cry--she needs it, clearly--so he settles for just holding onto her until she speaks again.

"I don't know how to be happy," she finally gets out around a quiet sob. "Because...because being with Aubrey makes me happy--she makes this place feel more like home. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm just...I'm just _sad_! And maybe it will someday but it hasn't yet and why should she stick around with someone who can't even be happy like a normal person? I'm just going to drive her away like I've always driven people away because even when I get what I want, even when I finally have something I've been longing for, I still can't make myself stop feeling like this. And I didn't think this would fix me but...but...I just thought maybe I wouldn't feel like this for a little while."

Barclay rubs between her shoulders and closes his eyes.

"You have to give it time," he says softly. "You're right that Aubrey won't solve all your problems, but you need to give yourself time to settle into a new relationship, to find that equilibrium. Your emotions are super amped up right now after all of those months of crushing--having what you want after wanting it for a long time can fuck you up. Believe me, I've been there."

"This isn't just amped up emotions, though, it's just...me! Me, just...sad. I'm just a sad person, and she's so enthusiastic and excited and...happy! And I wish I could be like that and she's going to figure out one day that I can't!"

Barclay is quiet for a moment. It's not that what she's saying is familiar to him, but it's not...unfamiliar, either. He wouldn't call himself sad, but he certainly worries more than the average person. He's more self-aware about it now than he was twenty years ago; he's absorbed enough about behavioral health theory through pop culture that he can recognize certain symptoms within himself, even if he can never see a doctor on this planet. He understands feeling like a part of you is broken.

"There's nothing wrong with your feelings," he murmurs. "You've been through a lot--we all have, things that people on this planet could never understand. It's okay to be sad, to be unmoored, even after all these years. And Aubrey's a bright kid. She's kind. She's not going to abandon you because of this. You're not going to disappoint her. And even if you do, that just means...it just means this wasn't going to work out. But you don't know that any of this is going to happen yet. You need to ease into this."

"But even if we do ease into it, what's to say it isn't going to just...blow up in my face? You loved Indrid and it didn't work--you said it yourself, it never would have worked, it was always going to fall apart. Even if she does stay with me even though I'm lonely and needy and sad and boring, what if it falls apart anyway? What if we're just never meant to be together and we're just going to spend the next decade drifting apart?"

Well, fuck. He probably should have put a little more thought into why she was asking before he answered her question.

He makes himself take his time--he can't rush into answering this one. He thinks about his time with Indrid and he thinks about Dani's exile. He thinks about Aubrey's bone-deep desire to help and the past he has a feeling she's running from. He thinks about all the ways he's fucked up over the past fifty years and exhales slowly.

"First off," he says, "you're not any of those things. Or--if you are those things, you're not anymore than the rest of us, okay? I'm boring as hell and all day I've been five seconds away from begging Indrid never to leave me again. It happens. And secondly...the only way we can find out if something is going to work is to go through with it. That's how relationships work. I know you know that. A month ago you were lecturing Jake about it. Being scared that something won't work out is fine, but you can't let it keep you from trying it in the first place. Indrid broke my heart thirty years ago, but the years we had together were still incredibly special to me. They made me who I am, and I wouldn't have traded them, even if it led to an eventual break-up."

Dani sniffles, but doesn't reply. Her grip on him isn't as tight as it was, so he eases her back just enough that he can look down at her. Her eyes are red and her face is blotchy and she looks miserable. It makes something deep inside of him twist up in grief to see her so unhappy.

"Mostly, though, I want you to understand that this is different than what happened with me and Indrid, mostly because...well, you have me. You have me and Mama and Jake and a whole lodge full of people who love you and can help you through this. Indrid and I were totally alone, Dani. We didn't have a stable home, let alone friends or a community. There was literally no one else in the world who I could count on outside of Indrid. I had no one to go to for advice and no one to vent to when I was upset. There was no one to knock sense into me when I was being obstinate. And that's not your situation at all--you have all of us, you and Aubrey both. And we're all here for you when you need support." He nudges her chin up gently. "I know you miss your family. I know it's hard being here. I know it's scary to take a chance with someone knowing that the universe might take them away from you too. But we're all here for you. You're not alone."

Dani's lower lip wobbles and she embraces him again, pressing her face back into his shoulder and crying softly. He hopes some of what he said got through to her. He wishes there was more he could do.

They stand in the kitchen, the silence punctuated by Dani's quiet sobs, until she finally calms down. It's nearly nine by the time she straightens up again, and Barclay grabs another paper napkin and holds it out for her to clean her face, which is sticky with tears. The lodge is unnaturally quiet for so early in the evening, but that's probably for the best.

"I hope that helped even slightly," Barclay says.

"It did." She sniffs and wipes her eyes again. She sounds more sure of herself, at least. "It did. Thanks, Barclay."

"I'm always here for you," he says, and hands her another napkin.

"I'm here for you too, you know," she says. "I know things with Indrid must be scary, but if you need someone to talk to...."

"I'll keep that in mind," Barclay says. "I mean, I think before anything else, the two of us need to figure out what we're doing and where we're going from here."

Dani wipes her face again and takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. "Then you should go do that. Talk to him, I mean. I can clean up here."

"I'm not going to leave that on you," Barclay says. He looks over the dishes that still need to be put into the dishwasher and the counters that need to be cleared off and cleaned up. "After dinner clean up is a two person job."

"I can help."

They both turn around. Aubrey is leaning in the open window, peering at them curiously. She frowns when she catches sight of Dani's face.

"Is everything okay?" she asks. "Dani, are you...?"

"I'm fine," Dani says with a watery smile. "Um, why don't you help me clean up and I can...talk to you about it. If that's okay."

"Of course it's okay," Aubrey says. She hops up onto the window counter and Barclay groans.

"Good god, Aubrey, please don't do that," he says, but it's too late--she's in the kitchen already, hopping back onto the ground. "If nothing else, please clean that. That's where food has to go and--just...clean it. Please."

Aubrey rolls her eyes and Dani laughs. Barclay takes back his earlier assessment about leaving her to do prep work without him.

"Fine, fine," he says. "I can tell where I'm not wanted."

"Go tell Indrid that you never want him to leave again," Dani tells him. "We'll clean up according to your instructions, I promise."

He can tell this is not a battle he's going to win. Oh well. He and Indrid really do need to talk.

"Fine," he says. "Just remember to--"

"I've been working here for like seven years!" Dani says, laughing. "Just go!"

It's good to hear her laugh, so he leaves the kitchen in her hands and heads out to find Indrid.

* * *

If pressed, Dani would list the kitchen as one of her favorite places at Amnesty Lodge. Below the hot springs, but above the lobby, the kitchen is a place she can alternately quietly contemplate anything that's on her mind or take her mind off of things by following the detailed steps of meal prep or table service. Working with Barclay is another perk of time in the kitchen, of course, and she's always grateful for both his friendship and the finicky way he demands everything be done when working with him. It's a great distraction when she needs it. It was a great distraction earlier tonight.

Of course, now Barclay is gone, dinner is over, and the kitchen feels smaller than it ever has before. It's just her and Aubrey and there's still about six feet of distance between them, but Dani's skin feels tight and wrong trapped in this room and confronted with a conversation she needs to have sooner rather than later.

"I know I asked if everything was okay," Aubrey says, finally, "but everything is obviously not okay, so it seems a little silly in retrospect, you know? Probably I should have led with 'What's wrong?'"

"Nothing's wrong," she says automatically, and Aubrey squints at her. Right. Communication. She can do this. "Nothing...new is wrong," she amends.

"That implies that something old was wrong," Aubrey says.

"Yes," Dani replies.

Aubrey looks at her, waiting for elaboration, and Dani sighs and leans back against the counter.

"Um...so, I guess the short version is that...I talked a big game last night, about, you know, not letting fear hold you back and doing stuff because you want to do them and embracing life even though everything's crazy. And it's not that I don't believe those things are true--I do, it's like...objectively good advice. But--" She rubs her forehead and glances over at Aubrey, then away again, tilting her head back to stare up at the ceiling. "I don't want to freak you out. We've only been dating for like, twenty-four hours."

"Well, yeah," Aubrey says softly, "but even before that we were friends, right? Even if you told me you didn't actually want to date me, I'd want to know if you were upset, because we're friends."

Dani slowly looks down again, first examining her hands and then looking back to Aubrey. Friends are there to help you. She knows that. She just exercised that with Barclay. Aubrey was so candid with her last night that Dani really owes her this, if nothing else.

"So, okay," Dani says. "I guess the crux of it is that...I'm just...sad." She squeezes her eyes shut at the banality of that statement. She sounds like a little kid and she knows it. "I'm just sad a lot. I'm sad a lot of the time and I'm afraid that it's going to torpedo whatever we have before it actually starts."

She opens her eyes again and chances a cautious look at Aubrey. Her expression hasn't changed and, for once, she doesn't seem to have anything to say to that, so Dani hesitantly continues.

"I know I said it last night," she says slowly, "but I'm not great at relationships." She knits her fingers together and then looks down at her hands. It's definitely easier to speak and to breathe that way. "I get sad, a lot, and people get bored or annoyed. I miss my family--I left a lot of family behind, in Sylvain, in addition to literally everything I knew about life and my future. It's hard to deal with that when I'm dating someone who can't know the details, and even the time I tried dating a Slyph, she just got...really weird about how attached I still was to everything I left behind. Like I should have been over it already."

"That's bullshit," Aubrey says, so fiercely it surprises Dani into looking up again. "There's no roadmap to grief." She says it with the air of someone who's had the words repeated back to them several times over. Dani offers her a weak smile.

"I know that," she says. "But at the end of the day, it still meant the same thing."

"You're worth more than that," Aubrey insists, and Dani blinks, once again, at the vehemence. 

"Um, thanks," she says shyly, feeling herself start to flush. "I'm glad you think so."

"Yeah, well." Aubrey looks down at her shoes and rubs her hand absently against the shaved side of her head. "Anyway. I didn't mean to interrupt."

And the thing is, Dani knows it's true. She knows that Aubrey respects what she's saying. She knows that her feelings are important to Aubrey. She's not sure if it makes her feel better or worse.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm afraid that I'm not...easy to be around. And I look at Barclay and Indrid and how they crashed and burned and it just...freaks me out. Because I always assumed that if I cared enough about someone, we could work it out and push through all our issues, but that's clearly not true. They loved each other--they still love each other--and they still spent thirty years not talking."

Part of her still wants to hold all of this back, and it's hard to tell if that part is afraid of saying it out loud or if it's an objectively dumb idea to start talking about being together for years with a person she's only just started dating. She doesn't want to scare Aubrey off, not after she spent so long convincing her that this could work, but she also doesn't want her stumbling in unprepared.

Is that just an excuse? Can she even tell the difference anymore?

"Sorry," she says, taking a breath. "I know that's a lot. I know this is new and it's maybe too much for something so new, but Barclay said the key to not crashing and burning is to talk so...I'm trying to talk."

She's never been great at this, but she's also not had much practice. Most of her relationships in the past were with humans, and while she might have had a few fleeting fantasies about telling them all about who she was and where she came from, she knew that it was unlikely to happen, which pretty much doomed the relationship from the start. She was afraid, at first, that was the only reason that she liked Aubrey: she was cute, she was interested, and she knew about Sylvain. She still worries, deep down, that maybe her brain is tricking her into liking Aubrey because she's a convenient option, but it's hard to fake the way her heart speeds up when Aubrey stands too close or the way her insides twist when they hold hands.

This is real, and if it's real, that means she needs to take it seriously.

"No, it's good," Aubrey says, taking a step forward. "I'm glad we're talking. And it's maybe a little freaky, but just because the future is scary, not because I think you're being weird thinking about it." She steps close enough to touch Dani's wrist. It's a gentle movement, like she's afraid Dani might freak out or run away. "I want you to talk about things if they're on your mind. I want you to tell me how you feel, because otherwise I won't know how to help or if I'm doing something wrong."

"I'm just sad," Dani says with a rueful smile. She turns her wrist in Aubrey's grip so she can take her hand and squeeze it. "And I don't want you to think I'm sad because of you. And I wish I could be less sad for you. But I think I'm always going to be a little sad."

"I don't know if it makes you feel any better, but you don't seem sad all the time," Aubrey says carefully. "It's not like you're just moping around 24/7."

"I'm pretty good at hiding it."

"I wish you wouldn't have to." Dani doesn't mean to sigh, but before she even has time to go down that rabbit hole-- _of course she wishes you were different that's how this always works_ \--Aubrey squeezes her hand and says, "No,I mean--wait, let me try that again. What I mean is that I was really depressed after my mom died. And I know how it can mess you up. And I don't want you to feel like you have to hide that from me." She takes Dani's other hand and stands in front of her, almost painfully earnest. "If you're sad and you don't want to do something or you want to spend time by yourself or whatever, you can tell me and I won't be offended. But if you're sad and doing something would help then...I want to be able to help you with that too. You just need to tell me which it is, okay? You don't need to be happy for me. You just need to be...you."

Dani needs to swallow a few times to clear the lump from her throat. She really, really doesn't want to cry again today--she hates crying. 

"That's...really sweet," she finally manages to say. Her voice, thankfully, only cracks a little. "I can't promise it will work every time. Just having this conversation was rough."

"I can't promise that this will magically fix things, but we can try," Aubrey says. "Like you said, we're still getting to know each other. We'll talk more and it will get easier to say things. And, who knows, maybe having a person you can talk to will help with some of the sadness."

"Is that really how it works?"

"I mean, I'm not an expert on relationships, but I'm definitely an expert on talking, so." Dani cracks a smile.

"Okay, well...what do you want to talk about?" she asks. 

"Tell me about your family," Aubrey says. "It's shitty that people get weird about you being separated from them." All Dani can do for a moment is blink. "I mean, if you want to."

"No!" Dani says quickly. "No, I--I mean, yes, I do. It's just...no one's ever asked before."

"Well, I'm asking now. Tell me about them." She drops Dani's hands and then sits down on the floor, crosslegged and looking up at Dani expectantly. Dani glances at the dishes that still need to be loaded into the dishwasher and the garbage that still needs to go out to the dumpster. "We can finish that later. C'mon."

Dani sits slowly on the ground, crossing her own legs and facing Aubrey. She closes her eyes and thinks back to her childhood home and says, "I have three sisters. I'm the second youngest and even though we didn't always get along, my sisters were probably my best friends." When she opens her eyes, Aubrey is watching her fondly. She gestures for Dani to continue. "When we were all little, our parents used to make us wear these matching dresses. The same one every year, so they only had to buy one new one and the others could just be handed down to the next sister. So we started sort of messing with them to play tricks on each other."

Aubrey laughs. "What sort of tricks?"

"Well, first off, you need to know that my middle sister really, really hated bugs...."

They don't get to the dishes until much, much later, and bed even later than that, but Dani can't say that she minds.

* * *

By the time Barclay leaves the rest of kitchen clean-up in Dani and Aubrey's hands and retreats to his bedroom, Indrid has already plugged in two space heaters and is pointing one directly at the bed. The room is Too Warm and Barclay has Regrets--another thing they should talk about when they're talking about what they are and what they're doing, he supposes.

"Hey," he says quietly, closing the door behind him and grimacing at the heat. "We should really finish that talk...."

He trails off mid-word. Indrid is pulling one of his sweaters off, the rest of his shirts clinging to it as it moves upwards, revealing the skin of his stomach, his navel, the jutting curve of his hipbones where they peek over the top of his too-big jeans.

He really, really needs to stop thinking with his dick. And he's going to.

In a few minutes.

He steps into Indrid's personal space and places his hands on his hips. Indrid startles, which has always been a little victory as far as Barclay is concerned. He's tangled in his sweater, and by the time he sheds it and lowers his arms, rumpled and pleased, Barclay has moved his hands up to just below his rib cage. He's a mess, his glasses tangled in the collar of his shirt, his hair pointing in every direction. Barclay doesn't think he's ever wanted something as much as he wants Indrid Cold in this moment.

"Oh," Indrid says, breathless.

"Hi," Barclay says.

"I thought we were going to talk," Indrid says, and his eyes go distant for a moment, shuffling through the hundreds of possibilities his mind is always showing him.

"Do you want to talk?" Barclay asks. He moves his thumbs in a slow, deliberate arc against Indrid's skin.

"Not particularly," Indrid says, and closes the distance between them.

Barclay has to lean over to kiss Indrid, pulling him close, right up against his chest until he can feel Indrid's heart beating wildly against his own. Indrid's hands curl around his shoulders and squeeze tightly. It's like they're both intent on occupying the same space, the same air, the same skin. It's about more than physical desire--it's about holding onto someone without letting go. Barclay wants to fuck Indrid, sure, but more than that, he wants to have him here, precious and close, his skin warm under Barclay's palms.

The kiss breaks and Barclay presses another, smaller kiss to the impatient corner of Indrid's mouth. "For someone who can see the future, you get awfully impatient when we do this."

"That's because I can't see the future when we do this," Indrid say breathlessly. "When I'm with you like this, this is all I can see. It's all I can focus on and I want more of it."

The breath leaves Barclay's body in a rush that makes him lightheaded. He wants to say something, to marvel at that intimacy, but Indrid is insistent and relentless in his arms and Barclay still hasn't managed to stop thinking with his dick. When Indrid tries to hook a leg around his own, it's so much easier to just lift him up and keep kissing him as he wraps his legs around Barclay's waist. 

They fumble together as Barclay tries to pick his way across the room, which Indrid has already littered with his belongings--and they're going to have a long talk about that later, for certain. Indrid is trying to unbutton Barclay's shirt while Barclay works to rid Indrid of his remaining layers. They're working at cross purposes towards the same goal until Barclay stumbles towards the wall and pins Indrid's back against it, the wall taking enough of his weight that Barclay can free his other hand. He does it just long enough to grab Indrid's wrists and squeeze them once. Indrid freezes immediately, his eyes wide and dark and sharp.

"That's new," he manages to say. His voice quivers and for just a moment, Barclay is terrified that he's crossed a line, that he's been too rough too fast. But he's deeply familiar with the way that Indrid is staring at him. It may have been more than thirty years since he last saw it, but he knows how Indrid looks when he's turned on, certainly. He'll never forget it.

"Sorry," he says. He starts to loosen his grip, but Indrid shakes his head immediately.

"No, no, no," Indrid says. "Don't stop on my account."

"I was just trying to, um--" God, he's actually blushing, he knows he's actually blushing, hopefully his beard is hiding the worst of it, not that Indrid hasn't seen him in much more mortifying positions before. He releases Indrid's wrists and then pulls his remaining shirts off, careful to drop them near the wall and out of the path to the bed. Once Indrid is bare from the waist up, save for the sliver of the heart of Sylvain hanging from his neck, Barclay slips one arm back around his hips and slides the other slowly up his bare back. "It just seemed like we were being...inefficient."

 _Inefficient_. What is wrong with him?

Indrid just grins at him.

"Inefficient," he repeats, beaming. "I really have missed you, Barclay. Truly. More than I can say."

Barclay has to kiss him again, both for being so sweet and because he may die of mortification if this conversation continues.

Indrid returns to the buttons on the front of Barclay's shirt as they kiss, pulling it out of his jeans to finish the job and then shoving it off Barclay's shoulders. He makes a tiny, frustrated noise and plucks at the front of Barclay's t-shirt, pushing off the wall with his other hand and forcing Barclay to stumble forward and pivot, landing more or less on the bed. Indrid wastes no time in divesting Barclay of his t-shirt, tossing it off to the side without a second glance.

"You could have just told me you want a change of venue," Barclay murmurs, rolling more fully onto the mattress. Indrid straddles his hips, flushed and pleased, spreading his hands out against Barclay's bare chest.

"That was more efficient," he says, and Barclay groans. Before he can cover his face in embarrassment, Indrid's hands are in his hair and they're kissing roughly again.

He means to go slowly. He wants to go slowly, still, because they were too desperate when they were rolling around on the floor of the panic room yesterday afternoon, too rushed when they were exchanging sloppy blow jobs in Barclay's room before dinner last night, and too tired and quiet to risk anything more than quickly rubbing off against each other when Barclay woke unexpectedly in the middle of the night. He wants to have the sort of slow, gentle sex they used to have on bright afternoons and comfortable evenings, back when they didn't worry about anything except each other. He misses having that sort of connection with someone, that familiarity with someone else's body. He misses the intimacy of being that close to someone else because you want so desperately to be near them rather than because you're desperate to get off.

But, then, it's not like he planned this. It's not like he paced himself for something long and soft. They can have slow, careful sex later--right now, Indrid is making a good case for this to be over sloppily and imminently. 

"What do you want?" Barclay asks, mouth pressed against Indrid's temple as his lungs rasp with deep, rapid breaths.

"You were the one who seemed to suddenly have an agenda," Indrid says, but he's already shoving his pants down his thighs. He wraps one arm around Barclay's back while the other hand grapples with his fly.

"I just wanted to touch you," Barclay says. He fits his hands to Indrid's shoulder blades and then slides them down his back, feeling his muscles pull and flex.

"Sentimental," Indrid murmurs, but he kisses Barclay again, slow and thorough as he pushes Barclay's pants out of the way and takes him in hand, stroking them both together.

It's not slow or graceful, but that's not bad, necessarily. He's always loved Indrid's hands, his long fingers, his steady grip on everything from a pencil to the steering wheel of the Winnebago. Barclay flips them over and Indrid is beneath him, like Barclay has gathered him up into one place, surrounding him on all sides. It's a bit possessive, a bit proprietary, but he's a little too distracted not to play his hand so plainly, and Indrid doesn't seem to mind, if his nails digging enthusiastically into Barclay's back are any indication.

He's wanted this all day. Not the sex, but this closeness. He's spent the whole day itching to have Indrid in his arms, to hold onto him, to feel him whole and perfect just like this. He never wants to let go again, a treacherous thought that he's been actively trying to eliminate, but he can't hide it from himself. Not now, with all his barriers disassembled under Indrid's touch. Not here, where he can feel the soft heat of Indrid's skin and the beating of his heart.

It doesn't take long. Indrid's orgasm seems to take him by surprise and Barclay follows not long after, finishing himself off once Indrid is too dazed to keep going. He keeps enough of his wits about him to avoid falling directly on Indrid and he manages to grab some tissues to clean them off before Indrid does something stupid and impulsive like use the sheets.

He kicks his pants the rest of the way off and Indrid does the same. They lay there, breathing heavy, curled next to each other. It's too warm with the space heaters blasting, but Barclay finds even that doesn't bother him as much as it should in this moment. He kisses Indrid's temple.

"Well," Indrid says between heavy breaths, "that was unexpected. And I don't get to say that often." He grins at Barclay, and maybe he intends it to be smug or salacious, but he just looks...happy. Barclay knows the feeling.

"Uh, it wasn't necessarily...premeditated," Barclay admits. "I really did want to talk."

"I know." Indrid kisses his bare shoulder. "So. Talk. I mean, I know what you're going to say, but I believe a large portion of it will be about the two of us actually saying things ourselves."

Barclay rolls his eyes, but he tucks his arm around Indrid's waist. Any moment now, Indrid's going to want to get dressed again, to burrow under the blankets and turn up the space heater, so Barclay is going to relish in skin to skin contact as long as he can.

"What are doing? Where are we going? What is this, now?"

Indrid hums and rolls closer to Barclay, pressed against his side in a blatant attempt to steal his body heat.

"I think all that is up to us to define," he finally says. "If you're asking what do _I want_ us to be, then the answer is that...I miss you. I've missed you for a long time. And if I'm being selfish, what I want is for you to come back. For you to travel with me. For the two of us to work out all of the fears and frustrations that have kept us apart for so long and spend the rest of our lives together. I want to be able to go to sleep each night comforted by the fact that you're safe and that I know exactly where you are and what your future holds." He pushes himself up on one elbow and looks down at Barclay. His smile has gone wistful and he looks tired and rumpled, but he's not trying to hide anything. He's not trying to be evasive or mysterious. It's just Indrid, at his most direct. "I know most of that isn't possible, even without looking to the future. I know we have to compromise. But that seems like a good place to start. What do you want?"

Barclay's impulse is to start with a compromise, to start with what seems reasonable and logical and doable and not what he actually wants. He has to stop for a moment to think about what he really wants, what his ideal situation would be. In his perfect world, where are he and Indrid?

"I want you to stay here," he finally says. "I want you to stay here at the lodge with me. I want you to slot into life here the way all the other parts of my life have slotted together since I settled in. You're the only thing that's missing. I want to know where you are, too. To get to go to sleep next to you at night. To never worry about where you are or what you've gotten involved with."

Indrid stares at him a moment, thoughtful, before lying down again, resting his head on Barclay's shoulder. Barclay reaches up to stroke his hair and they lay in silence for a long while.

"I can't stay anymore than you can leave," Indrid finally says. "Not permanently. But...I don't have to travel all the time. There are long stretches where I don't have anywhere specific to be. Months when I'm wandering aimlessly to fill the time until I need to be somewhere else. I don't need to wander."

It's not, of course, what Barclay wants to hear. But it's better than he expects and probably more than he would have managed to ask for, given the chance.

"I can call," Barclay says. "On the days you're not here. At night, so you know I'm alive. After particularly bad hunts. After doing something risky."

"The abominations come on a regular schedule," Indrid says. "I can't promise to be here for all of them but...I can try."

"I'll tell you what I need," Barclay says, perhaps the hardest of these promises and definitely the one he's not sure he can follow through. "I'll say things out loud. I'll ask for things. I'll let you know how I feel."

"I'll do the same," Indrid says. "I'll try to be forthright. I won't hide behind the future. I won't use the future as a weapon against us."

"And I won't use it as an excuse," Barclay says.

"I'll tell you when I'm scared," Indrid says.

"I will too." Barclay closes his eyes and pulls Indrid closer when he shivers. Barclay will never understand Indrid's circulation issues--Barclay is sweating in the almost unbearable heat of the bedroom, but Indrid's fingers are icy where they're pressed against Barclay's chest. This will be an adjustment again, to be sure. Barclay runs hot and living in the RV with Indrid was sometimes a battle of wills over the thermostat. During those last few months, Barclay turned it into screaming arguments more than once.

God, can they really do this again?

"I'm scared now," Barclay admits.

"I am too," Indrid says. "I don't know if this will work, but I want it to."

"Don't know or won't look?"

"Won't look," Indrid says. "I don't want to know. I want it to work too badly--I don't know what I'll do if I look and find out that it doesn't."

They're both quiet again. Some of Barclay's old impulses are back--he wants to run. He wants to beg Indrid to tell him what's going to happen. He wants to pull back and talk himself out of this because, god, what if it doesn't work? What if this is all for nothing and ends with him getting his heart broken again?

"I love you," Barclay says. "I don't know if I've said that yet."

"You haven't, but I know," Indrid says. "I love you, too."

Barclay wraps Indrid in his arms and rolls over so that it's Indrid's back absorbing the brunt of the boiling heat, absently hoping that will keep Indrid from rolling himself up in blankets for just a little while longer. He keeps himself tucked against Barclay's side, hand sprawled out across his chest. Barclay covers it with his own, feeling the delicate bones of Indrid's fingers and wrist. 

"How long can you stay?" Barclay asks, as sleep starts to tug at him.

"Two weeks," Indrid murmurs. "Maybe three."

"Will you stay with me? Here?" Barclay asks.

"I'll stay with you wherever you want us to be."

Barclay closes his eyes and inhales deeply, reveling in the smell of sweat and skin and the feeling of Indrid's hair under his cheek. He's too sweaty and warm, sticky everywhere his skin presses against Indrid's, but he's also happier than he has been in years.

"We're going to have to make some rules about cleaning up," he says after a moment. He's met with silence. "Indrid...."

"Ssssh," Indrid mumbles against his shoulder. "I'm asleep."

"You're demonstrably not."

"I will be in a moment."

"I'm serious, Indrid, you can't just leave your crap all over my room."

"We can talk about it in the morning," Indrid says. "We'll have many more mornings to talk about it."

And goddammit, that completely transparent ploy works. Barclay feels like his whole body has relaxed into a warm puddle.

"Yeah?" he whispers.

"Yeah," Indrid says.

And despite the heat and the sweat and the fact that it's barely nine o'clock, it's easy for Barclay to fall asleep after that, safe in the promise of many more mornings to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, no promises because I'm terrible at keeping my fic-writing promises, but I did start a document called "accidental cryptid baby acquisition" for coffeesuperhero a few weeks ago.


End file.
